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I originally asked for tips under the subject heading of "Any Bright Ideas?" which I later realised wasn't much use for people doing a search for help with Steep Drives !!!

Firstly, many thanks to those who came up with bright ideas anyway !!

I did a search of past posts (thanks Andy100) and found that I WAS NOT ALONE!

I looked at movers (doubtful on an incline) - electric hoists ( not cheap and I can't be fussed with keeping a 12v battery charged up) but in the end (many thanks to tentpegjenny) I plumped for a "walkalong" handwinch.

Has the advantage of being temporarily attached to your trailer by means of a ball hitch so that you are near your trailer while winching, allowing you to steer if necessary. The hook end of the strap is attached to an eyebolt or similar on the back wall of your garage.

tentpegjenny gives an excellent description of how this works so I won't repeat it all here - just do a search for "walkalong" in the body text.

It's inexpensive (about £38 from Towsure) - I have gone for the one suggested by tentpegjenny - it's a W53 winch with a W731 mounting plate. It's also "dual action" (check this when buying!) which means that not only can you winch the trailer up the slope, you can also winch it slowly down again instead of just shoving out of the garage and having it drag you down the drive with sparks flying off your clogs!!

Hope other "Steep Dive Syndrome" sufferers find this useful and, no, I'm not a shareholder in Towsure - just pleased to have found something that (I hope!) will fit thebill

This is great information, have not heard of this type before.

Glad you got sorted and didn't reak the back in the meantime

Andy

Our problem is that our garage is at the bottom of the slope so that we have nowhere to fix an anchor point at the top ofthe slope.  We intend to get a caravan mover which will deal with 1 in 5 slopes.  Expensive, but will save the bottom of my car and the clutch.

Brian

Quote: Originally posted by brian humphreys on 31/8/2006

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Our problem is that our garage is at the bottom of the slope so that we have nowhere to fix an anchor point at the top ofthe slope.  We intend to get a caravan mover which will deal with 1 in 5 slopes.  Expensive, but will save the bottom of my car and the clutch.

Brian

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Why not enquire about the recon Powrtouch ones Brian? They still come with a full 3 year warranty, (new ones have 5 years).

I see you've got a folding camper, (or is it a trailer tent?), so you'd only need the mark 1 which chindley on here got and fitted himself for only £350, (or it might have been £375 come to think of it). You could have it fitted for you for an extra £60 though and we know this coz.....after chindley's post we managed to get a recon Mark 3, (heavy duty jobby for our tin tent), and it was all ordered and fitted within the week for half the price of a brand new one, (£1300 for ours!), and  was fitted on the morning of the night we were going away to Cornwall.

Brilliant gismo, just read my thread 'chindley we lub ya' to find out more. That's gotta be w-a-y cheaper than what you were expecting?